I'm trying to write a nice binary mesh/model format, which I'll be able to read from a file quickly and easily. I have Assimp working, so I can import from other formats in order to save in my own, but I need some advice on how to organize everything...

I think I'll go through that Collada tutorial that was linked, it seems like a great way to make myself more familiar with how animations are represented. I do like the Collada format a lot, and it does support some things that Assimp wont import, such as physics data. I haven't quite decided between Bullet and PhysX yet, but they both support Collada physics, so that's a huge plus right there. XML reading is kinda scary though... Oh well, let's give it a try.